Listening beyond presumptions

Prayer
Loving God, we have come learn from your word and let it change us. We have come to be refreshed by your presence and reminded that we are never far from you. Open our hearts to receive you, to get beyond our presumptions, and to reach out to others in love. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

Bible Story:  John 9:1-41

Messsage
Last Sunday I wondered if the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman would not have been better for the previous Sunday, as it was International Women’s Day, and this unnamed woman was the first female evangelist (first evangelist of any gender if we don’t include John the Baptist).  This week we are looking at the story of Jesus’ encounter with the man born blind, the perfect story for the time in which we live and the challenges we face.  In the story Jesus addresses one of the most perplexing questions of our existence.  Is there a connection between the perceived bad things that happen, between suffering, and our past actions or mistakes?  The author makes it very clear that this is the issue that Jesus is addressing by putting the very question into the mouths of the disciples, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (9:2)

Jesus response is also quite clear:  “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (9:3) Jesus clearly lets the discples know that their premise is wrong–there is no connection between this man’s past or his parent’s past and his current condtion.  There is no one to blame.

It is so clear, it’s there in black and white, there is no one to blame, and yet many Christians all over the world, throughout time like to play the blame game.  A natural disaster happens and invariably someone claiming to represent Jesus or God claims that it is God’s judgement on the nation because of some problem or issue that that individual has with his/her government or state.  The whole ministry of one church in the US is based on the idea that every death of every soldier or celebrity is God’s judgement on the nation because it is too caring about the rights of the LGBTQ community.  It that what Jesus said?

The blame game finds its way into some pretty basic doctrines of more traditional churches as well.  Some churches have spent many man hours coming up with lists of who and why people will be going to hell.  The lists then become weapons and part of a larger blame game to exercise control over others.  As we saw with the woman from Samaria, and with the man born blind, these lists are not in any of Jesus’ interests.

There is no one to blame, and while the lack of sight causes suffering, the problem itself is not evil.  In fact, it seems that in Jesus mind the morality of the problem is precisely in how those around him relate to the man born blind.  What is bad, or evil, is how those around him treated him, their attitude toward him.  How easy or hard did they make his life.  Whether or not they were doing what they could to effect healing.  For according to Jesus, when they did or when we do these helpful things we are living out the reign and wisdom of God, we are revealing God’s works, to use Jesus’ words.

So what does this mean in our context of the Covid-19 virus.  Well, in spite of what some politicians and religious leaders might want you to think, Covid-19 is not good or bad.  It is not a judgement of God.  It in of itself is neutral, neither evil or good.  Again a matter of perspective.  Yes, it causes suffering to humans, but it does not do so out of malice or on purpose.  It is simply living out its purpose, to infect, colonize and propogate.  If reports are true about China and Italy, while it has caused terrible suffering in human communities, it has also had the side effect of cleaner rivers and air, bringing back animal life that has been missing for many years.  Bad for humans, good for the environment.  (Some environmentalists, those especially who also like to play the blame game, have even made the claim that Covid-19 is nature’s judgement on humanity, for the evil we have perpetrated on creation.)  Covid-19 makes us sad and causes suffering, but it is just doing what viruses do.  There is no one to blame.

That is not to say that morality doesn’t have any role to play in our story.  Good or bad outcomes in terms of the effects of Covid-19 do have a role to play. Indeed, the question of moral good or evil comes in how we as humans react to the virus and its effects.  Moral good or evil comes into play when we look at how the choices we make with regard to the virus and people’s lives bring the reign or wisdom of God to life.  Do we allow our fellow men and women to suffer?  Do we stand aside and let “nature take its course.”  Do we waste precious time finding someone to blame?  Do we put up barriers to health?  Do we look for ways to better ourselves over, in spite of or at the expense of others?  Or do we look at ways of alleviating the suffering of others, as well as ourselves?  Do we love our neighbour as ourselves?  For it is in alleviating suffering, in protecting each other, in our governments seeking the best for all, that we reveal the work of God, the reign of God, the wisdom and love of God.  When we get beyond the blame game, when we get beyond wondering if there is something that we have done, we can get to our true purpose, doing whatever we can to show others what it means to be partners with God in lifting each other up, no matter what our circumstance and building a better world for all we find ourselves revealing the work of God.

Prayers
Loving, compassionate, embracing God. You sent Jesus into the world with a
new way of looking at life, and the lives of others.
Open me eyes and mind to understand the influences that make me see things in certain ways, whether it is the negative experiences of my past, how the world defines people through stereotypes, or cultural values.
As I begin to understand myself, help me, cleanse my eyes, cleanse my mind and heart.
So that as I look at the challenges that present themselves in life, I may be open to the positive possibilities that those challenges present based on how you see things, rather than how I am used to seeing things.  Help me to see how you can work, and be your partner in that work for others.

At this time I name and lift up those in my lives who need a touch of healing, a touch of comfort, a message of good news. …  Show me how I might be your presence in the lives of others.  Bless those who have chosen to keep us safe, and keep us going in the midst of these troubling times.  Grant us patience with ourselves and each other as we continue to practice social distancing.

Breathe new life, new understandings, new sight into all of us so that we might be as Jesus was, messengers of hope and love to all no matter their condition, their circumstances or beliefs.  Amen.

( Psalm 23 Adapted from the Good News Translation)
The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need.
The Lord lets me rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
It is the Lord who gives me new strength and guides me on the right paths, as promised.
Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
Your shepherd’s rod and staff protect me.
You prepare a banquet for me, where all my enemies can see me; you welcome me as an honored guest and fill my cup to the brim.
I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life; and
your house will be my home as long as I live.  Amen.

6. Be Still and Listen

In the last life hack we looked at asking, now we look at listening, listening for the answers to, or listening for insights for our requests. Before we can listen, we need to be calm.  We cannot hear clearly if our brain is preoccupied and stressed out.  For optimal health and wellness we need to pause and listen. Learning to calm ourselves to listen not only puts us in a good position for clear decisions, but changes our neural pathways and biochemistry for the good.

Imagine that your brain is a snow globe.  Most of the time it is calm, occasionally there is a little glitter swirl, but for the most part it is clear, information is coming in and you deal with it effectively.  Your snow globe is calm like a beautiful clear, calm and sunny winter’s day.  This is the normal state of things.  Information from the outside can come in and be clearly processed.  It is in this calm state that even the work of the subconscious mind can bubble its solutions to the surface.  Have you noticed that sometimes you have a solution after sleeping on a problem, or when you are doing something else?  When you’re calm and positive, you come up with creative solutions and make good decisions.  Creating that positive environment is what the other life hacks are all about, achieving calm is what this life hack is about.

5. Open Up! To Asking.

Something that drives me a little bonkers as a parent is when I ask my children, “What would you like?” and I get the response “I don’t know” and, based on previous experience, being aware that in fact they do know.  Then after playing the guessing game for a while, the truth finally comes out.  A lot of aggravation and frustration could have been spared by answering the question in the first place.  As adults, you would like to think that we know better, but the guessing games are a part of some adult relationships as well.  If you are like me, you may believe there is something to telepathy, but it is not a gift I possess.  This becomes painfully obvious when I get the response, “If you really love me, you know what I want.”  Er … um … can I get a hint at least?  Relationships are a lot easier when you ask for what you want, or tell others what you want.  What is true in human relationships appears to be true when it comes to life in general.  Reduce your stress, and that of others, figure out what you want or need and put it out there–ask, tell.

2. Fill Up on Gratitude!

Oprah Winfrey says that the most powerful decision she had ever made was to embrace gratitude. In fact, she once said, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more.  If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”  And lest anyone think that gratitude is another one of those airy-fairy self-help topics, the research has discovered a scientific basis for the benefits of gratitude.  Gratitude has been shown to improve ones sense of happiness by affecting our emotional well-being, our interpersonal connections, our vocations, health and even our personalities.  It can help break the negative spirals in which we find ourselves, promote health, boost the feel-good hormones and even change our brains, thereby changing how we think and how we react to challenging circumstances in our lives.

Memory and Gratitude

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Moses at Sinai

The why of the law

Often when we read about the people of Israel wandering in the desert we moderns tend to think of it as an exciting adventure. With the perspective of several thousand years we look at them and think why couldn’t they have been more faithful. The authors of Exodus seem to reinforce that sentiment.  We read the stories of their grumbling and complaining and see them as somehow being ungrateful. As I thought about these people in the desert, as I looked at them from the perspective of anyone in that situation, a different kind of picture started to form. For me the verse that begins to explain the state of the people is the verse where Moses says “Do not fear” (Exodus 20:20). I began to wonder what is was that they feared?  Why were they afraid of God? As I thought about it the only god/gods that they knew well were the Egyptian gods. Gods who were capricious. Gods who couldn’t be trusted. The Pharoah and his family were perfect examples, they were seen as gods and while Israel was welcomed at the beginning. in the end they were mistreated and turned into slaves. These were gods who could definitely not be trusted.  So how were the people to know that this God that Moses was following was any different? If Pharaoh and his kind made promises that they did not keep, why would this God keep the promises that this God made? I’m sure around every corner of their journey in the wilderness there was this small nagging doubt that this adventure was doomed, at some point the shoe would drop.  So when the reached that moment where there was no food, where there was no water, little wonder that they feared.  In fact we know they thought “Well, this is it.  The end.” (Exodus 17:3)

We aren’t that different today.  We know that there is this Higher Wisdom, a better and different way of being in the world.  A way that sees dignity in every person, every part of creation.  A way that seeks to be interdependent for the sake of the good of the whole.  Yet the other way, the way of survival of the fittest, me first; the way that judges one group as more worthy, more important than the other; the way that sees resources as finite has a stronger pull.  It is somehow easier to depend on yourself. The Higher Wisdom seems to be risky, depending a lot on the good will and engagement of other people.  We fear that we will be lead astray, that it will end in disaster for us. How do we find our way out of this wilderness?

The story of Israel at Sinai provides us with some insight.  It is at Sinai, that Moses give the people the law, which will pull them together as a people and set them up to be a successful people.  It is here that they receive a higher wisdom which will bring them life.  It leads them into a way of living that will bind them as a people–a successful and thriving people. They receive this higher wisdom, a new way of being in the world, they worry that they won’t succeed, and along with the fear that came with not trusting God, they have a fear of not being able to live up to this God’s expectations. This in spite of the all that God had done in their long journey, that demonstrated God’s love.  A love whose desire is their survival, which it seeks to guarantee through the gift of the law, the gift of a higher wisdom.

You want us to do what?

When we think of the law, Christians tend to think of the 10 Commandments which provide a nice summary of how a community can live together. We appreciate that. And except for a few who like to pick and choose, the other 613 laws that Moses lays out for the people, are seen by most Christians as being superseded by a higher law. The result is that we consider those other laws unimportant.  In doing so, we are in a sense “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” We loose sight of something important about those other laws.  We throw out the spirit behind those laws.  The why of the whole of the law.

We tend to ignore all those other laws because they seem so antiquated, irrelevant to modern life.  But we need to realize there is something else going on behind those many laws.  We need to get past the minutia, the details, and look at the why.  The how of a people coming together are found in the details of 613 commandments, the why is found in the memory of why they were at Sinai and who was walking with them to this point.  The why is found in the love of God that calls the people together to form the community; a community that exemplifies the best of expression of the image of God in which they are created. The law is the working out of that love in real time in creation. The following of that law is the celebration of the love that the law expresses, the desire for the success of the people.

As we reflect on all the stories of the wilderness wanderings we see that the people never really got it. They never really understood the why of going through the desert. At every turn they seem to think there was some sinister reason behind their travels. They never saw that it was the love of God that was leading them out of slavery into freedom, and the creation of a new community centered on the higher wisdom.  So even when they are at Sinai and have received the law, rather than rejoice that the law of God is calling them together for their success, they see something sinister at work, something that is out to get them and they fear.

The three directions of thanksgiving

The remedy for a forgetful people is also found in those 613 commandments, the commands to remember and celebrate.  The commands to remember and give thanks.  In ritual we remember where we’re from, how we got here. Where we are from and how we got here are critical in directing us to where we’re going. By remembering, celebrating and giving thanks, we see that the future like the past and the present are in Gods hands. Is the past and the present that give us hope for the future.  It is the past and the present that push us through the threshold into the future. It is in celebrating the past and the present that gives us hope for the future, and pushes us on to the next step. We see this understanding of remembering and thanksgiving in the New Testament.  When Paul says Jesus the same yesterday today and forever, part of what he saying is that as God has done as God is doing God will continue to do in the future.

We hear the words and the stories of Jesus, of his engagement with higher wisdom. Even Paul calls us to a higher wisdom. A wisdom so precious that he says we should count anything else as loss, in fact he actually uses a variation on the word, manure. And manure really is only good for one thing, to be plowed under for future growth. Yet it is hard to let go, it is hard to step out across the threshold to a new way of being, a new way of perceiving. We are afraid to let go, we are afraid of the unknown. Yet life, real life, lies before us, hope and success as individuals and as a people lie before us in the higher wisdom. How do we cross the threshold–the answer comes in the commands around celebrating holy days–to celebrate, to remember, in particular to remember what God has done, and will do. In celebrating we give thanks, not just something for the past but for our future.  The one who has been our companion and demonstrates power of the higher wisdom, walks with us still and will walk with us into every tomorrow to the end of time and beyond.

 

Wise Speech

Our words have power.  After listening to a lecture on the subject from a Buddhist perspective, it is interesting how the reality of this is a part of the fabric of both Buddhism and Christianity.  Both seek to move us to reflect and reprogram our internal and external communications about our reality and our interpersonal interactions.  Oren J. Sofer at AudioDharma.org talks about the filtering down of the Buddha’s teaching to three to four words/thoughts.

• True Timely Affectionate  Beneficial
• True, Timely, Useful, Good Will (Donald Rothberg)
• Clear honest beautiful

Thich Nhat Hanh fleshes this out on his reflection on right speech as wise speech:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will  refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.” Thich Nhat Hanh from precept-4.html

This understanding of the power of speech is reminiscent for me of Luther’s positive approach to the eighth commandment, “you shall not bear false witness” ..

We should fear  and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander,  or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak  well of him, and put the best construction on everything.  Luther, Small Catechism

Luther continues this thought in the Large Catechism by pointing out that this is also simply an extension of the Golden Rule.  It is here that he also points out that we are called to be people of integrity upholding the integrity of others.

Oddly enough, I am also reminded of something Joyce Meyers said as I lighted momentarily on her program while channel surfing, which also relates to this.  The negative word or thought that we receive from others about another, can become a filter or lens through which we perceive that other person when we encounter them.  So that instead of approaching another as we knew them, or allowing ourselves to be neutral, we are either already looking for something negative in our encounter, or we actually relate to that person as though the negative were true.  In Luther’s words, the thought causes us to suspect the person’s integrity before we have even encountered them.  As a result we treat them as people with less integrity in the encounter.  We may even go so far as to spread the negative thought about that person to others.

From the perspective of the person receiving a negative, unwise, word–even if the word is a part of conjecture–it results in an emotion that is then subject to the negative spiral of thoughts which keep the negative emotion alive.  For example, someone says, “I don’t know if John likes you”.  It is conjecture.  But as the person hearing those words you may feel hurt and rejected, perhaps even angry.  You begin to obsess on questions like “Why doesn’t John like me?  What did I ever do to John?  I never did like John.  What is it about me that is unlikable?  Maybe I am unlikeable, I’m not this or that ”  The cycle is now perpetuated. And depending on your personality, you may find it hard to sleep, hard to concentrate on your job (especially if John is a fellow employee or in a senior position to you), it may even affect your relationships with the people who do like you as you react from a place of agitation.  You might think, “well I’ll go and ask John, but then why would John want to talk to me?  And even if he denies it, he might just be being polite.”   And when you next meet John, you give John the cold shoulder and there is an air of hostility which becomes realized should you deign to speak to him.  Meanwhile, John is completely clueless as to why someone he may have just met, or someone he considered a friend, is being so hostile.  And depending on John’s own sense of awareness, he may react in the same way, give you the cold shoulder, which just confirms your perception and you think, “Aha, see he doesn’t like me!”  And John having had that negative encounter with you now enters into his own spiral about his own likeableness and probably for the first time has the thought, “I don’t think I like that person.”  Along with the negative emotions,the anxiety, the fatigue,  the body begins to release chemicals and hormones related to the fight/flight response, and over time these chemicals can result in dis-ease becoming disease.

And the reality is that, in the words from the Tom Stoppard play “Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead”: there must have been a point where we could have just said no. And indeed there are a number of points, beginning with the person expressing the conjecture, our reception of the conjecture, our dwelling on the conjecture, our decision to see John through the filter of the conjecture, our reacting to John, John’s reaction to us, etc.  At any point we could have diverted the path of destruction that the conjecture would take.  With God’s help it really would boil down to holding on to Luther’s notion of defending our neighbour, and at any point in the spiral downward to stop and look at what we are thinking answering the question “is this communication true, timely, affectionate, or benefical?  Is it good will?  Is it clear, honest or beautiful? ” or thinking about it through the lens of Than’s reflection on wise speech.

Through mindfulness, or prayer (the stopping and reflecting), we can dis-empower the conjecture at any point along the way.  If we deal with the dis-ease of the thought, we also deal with the disease it can cause both in terms of our relationship with others and our own physical well-being.